rmful.

Good political institutions would weaken the impulse toward force and
domination in two ways: first, by increasing the opportunities for the
creative impulses, and by shaping education so as to strengthen these
impulses; secondly, by diminishing the outlets for the possessive
instincts. The diffusion of power, both in the political and the
economic sphere, instead of its concentration in the hands of
officials and captains of industry, would greatly diminish the
opportunities for acquiring the habit of command, out of which the
desire for exercising tyranny is apt to spring. Autonomy, both for
districts and for organizations, would leave fewer occasions when
governments were called upon to make decisions as to other people's
concerns. And the abolition of capitalism and the wage system would
remove the chief incentive to fear and greed, those correlative
passions by which all free life is choked and gagged.

Few men seem to realize how many of the evils from which we suffer are
wholly unnecessary, and that they could be abolished by a united
effort within a few years. If a majority in every civilized country
so desired, we could, within twenty years, abolish all abject poverty,
quite half the illness in the world, the whole economic slavery which
binds down nine tenths of our population; we could fill the world with
beauty and joy, and secure the reign of universal peace. It is only
because men are apathetic that this is not achieved, only because
imagination is sluggish, and what always has been is regarded as what
always must be. With good-will, generosity, intelligence, these
things could be brought about.

Chapter II: Capitalism and the Wage System

I

The world is full of preventible evils which most men would be glad to
see prevented.

Nevertheless, these evils persist, and nothing effective is done
toward abolishing them.

This paradox produces astonishment in inexperienced reformers, and too
often produces disillusionment in those who have come to know the
difficulty of changing human institutions.

War is recognized as an evil by an immense majority in every civilized
country; but this recognition does not prevent war.

The unjust distribution of wealth must be obviously an evil to those
who are not prosperous, and they are nine tenths of the population.
Nevertheless it continues unabated.

The tyranny of the holders of power is a source of needless suffering
and misfortune t